Watching Time

** Watching Time ** From all analog to any Digitally shown markings Of humanity’s invented Way to watch over Light — passing or coming — Time… In less than a breath, So, so many ways our anxious Noting of hours may be halted: By accidents or by The Will of Heaven! Remember ever seelng those once “Must-be-shown” to the garden’s visitors? — Those unique, Stone, short, column-standing Sundials, marking the hours With shadow and sunbeams Since 1500 B.C.E., which have Long been overgrown — all Caught up in ever-ongoing Streams of shadeoverwhelmng, Overhanging trees, and, too, From climate affected heat And rain…The gray, raining Clouds so thick and towering On high with the rising Moisture of all humanity’s Tears. Then there will always be The remaining, need-to-know Few, who for medical or Technical or religious Or any other practical or Curious reson, will try to Fix their Heaven-warned Clocks, and to finally give up …Calculating to guess-estimate By motions of the sun, the Moon or the constellions; by The ebb and flow of tides Until, finally, in the far Places, when necessary, to Pen lines on paper, or Like (we may suppose) our Earliest ancestors, resort to Notching strokes on sticks: to Keep track of all the transient Things that can’t be fixed, or Hidden…Finally, quitting numbers To throw it all off to Magic With all the other unexplained Wonders there aren’t any ideas For, and at last figure up all Those anxious guesses about the Hour of the End-of-Time by the Repeticious and exhausting Counting of fingers and toes. ———————————————————————————————————- (c) sally young eslinger 6/8-7/10/2023